ABSTRACT
The 1970s have been depicted as the temporal crossroads of a generational shift (sedai ko¯tai) in zainichi thought. This is because of the growing unrest of the younger-generation zainichi against considerable power and control resting with the older generation and their ideas of what being zainichi meant. Considerable demographic changes that began in the post-Second World War period through to the late 1970s were used as leverage by the younger generation in the struggle to have their opinions heard in the zainichi community. In particular, the increase in the number of Japan-born second-and third-generation and the decrease in the number of Korean-born firstgeneration zainichi were key elements in an unprecedented drive for change. Such demographic changes, together with the realization that the much awaited reunification of the Korean peninsula was not going to materialize, provided strong support for a growing argument that zainichi residence in Japan was more or less permanent. Although the movement initiated through the Hitachi case, mentioned in the previous chapter, contributed to social change, the articulation of feelings and thoughts of belonging and permanency in the late
1970s and early 1980s added significant momentum to change within the zainichi community and in the broader Japanese social context.
